McLevy at Bloody Scotland

A brand new edition of Victorian crime short stories has been published by MSc Publishing students at Edinburgh Napier University under the Merchiston Publishing imprint.

Detective McLevy’s Casebook, a vibrant collection of case studies by Edinburgh Detective James McLevy, brings the “real Sherlock Holmes” to a new audience.

James McLevy was one of Edinburgh’s first detectives. His career spanned over three decades and over 2,200 cases, in which he almost always secured a conviction.

His stories are said to be the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. At the time, McLevy’s stories were as popular as those of the fictional Holmes, and they set the scene for the crime fiction that followed.

This new book collects together a number of McLevy’s best short stories, exposing Auld Reekie’s Victorian underworld. The new edition features an introduction by Alanna Knight, drawing upon her expertise in Victorian crime fiction.

The cover illustration is by Iain McIntosh, a well known Scottish illustrator with a distinctive style who is perhaps best known for his Alexander McCall Smith book covers.